Social protection for people with disabilities in Africa and Asia: a review of programmes for low- and middle-income countries

Despite a greater need for social protection among people with disabilities, there is limited evidence of their inclusion into social protection programmes in low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents the findings from a review of regional and global data sources for Asia-Pacific and Africa to identify social protection programmes that aim to include people with disabilities. It finds a substantial number of programmes in both regions, although there is considerable variation in the quantity and types of programmes within and between regions and countries, as well as between low- and middle-income countries. Further, the quality of data is not sufficient to assess the degree to which these programmes are genuinely inclusive of people with disabilities. As such, it highlights important limitations in the way data is currently being collected that require further attention in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitment to ‘Leave No-one Behind’     

Disability and social protection programmes in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

This paper systematically reviews the evidence on whether persons with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries are adequately included in social protection programmes, and assesses the financial and non-financial impacts of participation. Overall, we found that access to social protection appears to fall far below need. Benefits from participation are mostly limited to maintaining minimum living standards and do not appear to fulfil the potential of long-term individual and societal social and economic development. However, the most notable finding of this review is that there is a dearth of high-quality, robust evidence in this area, indicating a need for further research.     

Government Policies and Sources of Latecomer Firms' Capability Building: A Learning Story from Brazil

Millennium goals aim to halve poverty in developing countries by 2015. As a distinction is not drawn between the persistently and transiently poor, there is a risk that strategies designed to accelerate growth to achieve the desired reduction in an overall index of poverty may be preferred to those that benefit the persistently poor. Besides, in the absence of a disaggregation of these goals into rural and urban components, rural poverty reduction may not get the priority it deserves. Finally, the feasibility of the millennium goals is not plausible. While the growth rates required for achieving these goals do not differ much from those recorded in recent years, their sustainability is not self-evident. Moreover, as income inequality has increased in recent years, the poverty reduction due to a given growth rate is lower. But these goals are nevertheless useful in drawing attention to pervasive deprivation in developing countries, and to the need for a determined and co-ordinated effort by the development community in reducing it substantially in the not-too-distant future.     

Socioeconomic burden of trypanosomiasis: Evidence from crop and livestock production in Ethiopia

This paper estimates the impact of trypanosomiasis on crop-livestock production, economic loss and poverty in Ethiopia. We use unique panel data to estimate how the disease affects livestock deaths, production costs and crop production. We then use these estimates to evaluate the disease's total economic loss and its implications on poverty in the study districts and the country. Estimates of the fixed effect regression models indicate that trypanosomiasis increases the value of livestock deaths by 33% and production costs by 63%. Crop production decreases by 14% when trypanosomiasis and oxen death coexist. We estimate that the direct economic loss is about US$58,300 per annum in the study districts. The estimated countrywide economic loss is about US$94 million per annum. Had the government prevented this economic loss and invested it in social protection programmes, it could have lifted about 9000 people in the study districts and about 200,000 people in the country above the national poverty line per annum. These findings indicate that trypanosomiasis remains a major production constraint. Controlling the disease appears to be pro-poor, calling for more policy attention.     

Engaging Australian small-scale lifestyle landowners in natural resource management programmes – Perceptions,past experiences and policy implications

This study explores Australian small-scale rural lifestyle landowners’ perceptions of and experiences with natural resource management (NRM) extension and incentive programmes and discusses means to better-match such programmes to these landowners’ NRM interests, assistance needs and delivery preferences. Data was collected from seventeen in-depth qualitative case-studies of small-acreage landholders located in the Noosa hinterland in south-east Queensland. These landholders indicated a high need for expert advice, labour and other resource assistance to achieve their property management objectives. They had, however, a low-level of awareness and understanding of available programmes (particularly incentive schemes) that could provide some of their needed support. Other key barriers to the landholders’ participation in these programmes were aversions to support providers, a perceived unsuitability of properties or irrelevance of particular incentive programmes, and concerns about programme application procedures or property-rights and value-related implications of engagement. Increased NRM engagement among small-scale lifestyle landowners may be achievable through amendments to existing support programmes and better communication of these programmes. The design and delivery of appropriate measures and messages may require collaborative partnerships, with knowledgeable and influential ‘go-to’ landowners and peer-mentoring networks playing a critical role. In many cases, conservation-focused incentive programmes may need to facilitate cooperative NRM among groups of adjoining micro-scale lifestyle landowners and allow greater flexibility in the length and allowable land and forest management practices of contractual agreements. Moreover, small-scale lifestyle landowners have much interest in and need for support to integrate multi-purpose agroforestry systems with other environmental and aesthetic property management goals. Workshops, follow-up field-days on participating properties, free one-on-one on-property advice, and NRM guides that include detailed case-study accounts of landowner experiences are important means of communicating the availability, administrative requirements and benefits of support programmes to small-scale lifestyle landowners.     

Living on the edge: vulnerability to poverty and public transfers in Mexico

Social policy in Mexico has focused on identifying and supporting households in extreme poverty. Yet, the country has a significant number of households just above the poverty line who are not eligible, by definition, for antipoverty programmes and are at risk of falling into poverty in the event of adverse shocks without appropriate social safety nets. This study uses cross-section and longitudinal data to understand better the profile of those ‘vulnerable’ households, their risk exposure, and the extent to which they are covered by public transfers and insurance mechanisms. The analysis shows that until 2010 most social programmes, including the few with productive components, barely covered the vulnerable. The study calls for public policies to pay attention to the vulnerable and find a policy mix on the continuum between targeted interventions and universal insurance schemes to serve this income group.     

Digital governance and the reconstruction of the Indian anti-poverty system

On a global scale, programmes of social protection for the poor are becoming increasingly computerised, and architectures of biometric recognition are being widely used in this respect. I research how these architectures, adopted in anti-poverty systems, structure ways to ‘see the state’ for citizens living in poverty. To do so I study India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala, which is augmenting its main food security scheme with the computerised recognition of its users. In the government’s narrative, biometric technology is depicted as an optimal solution to the illicit diversion of PDS goods on the market. Nevertheless, according to the multiple narratives collected across the state, beneficiaries dispute this view in different ways because of the mixed effects of the new technology on their entitlements under the PDS. The government’s capability to reconstruct its image through digital innovation is thus found to be constrained by citizens’ perceptions derived from their encounters with the new technology of governance.     

面向SDGs的土地可持续利用目标、挑战与应对策略

研究目的:基于联合国2030可持续发展目标(SDGs),分析土地可持续利用的目标以及中国所面临的形势与挑战,并提出应对策略,为可持续发展的实现提供路径支持。研究方法:文献研究法。研究结果:土地利用是人类、土地单元和土地利用方式三者相互影响与制约的过程,会深刻影响2030年可持续发展目标的实现;在17个SDGs中,有7个目标与土地利用相关,可归纳为高效和集约利用土地、保护和改善土地生态环境、被社会所接受三大目标,以及提高农用土地生产能力、促进工业土地集约与转型利用、建设安全和包容城镇、防治土地污染、恢复生态系统和防治土地退化、消除贫困和实现土地产权安全7项具体目标;面对SDGs的土地持续利用目标,中国在耕地保护、工业用地转型升级、土地污染治理、土地生态修复等方面还面临诸多挑战。研究结论:为推进面向SDGs的土地可持续利用,需要构建本土化监测指标体系,自然资源相关规划与政策的制定要反映土地可持续利用的目标,以土地制度改革助推土地可持续利用,重视土地科技创新,并加强利益相关群体的参与和合作。     

The primacy of human capital and social capital in influencing landholders’ participation in programmes designed to improve environmental outcomes*

Increasing landholder participation in environmental programmes is often essential for achieving desired levels of restoration and protection, as well as the economic goals of efficiency and equity. Previous literature has identified sociodemographic property and attitudinal variables that influence participation. Using qualitative research, we identify variables relating to human capital (business orientation and information seeking behaviour) and social capital (trust in those delivering programmes and connectedness with other landholders) that have been seldom or never identified as influencing participation. New scales are developed and existing scales refined for measuring these constructs, and their influence on past and future participation is examined together with a range of other constructs. The effect of these variables is examined using a survey of Australian landholders, and the results demonstrate the primacy of variables relating to human and social capital in influencing past and future participation.     

2020年后中国多维相对贫困标准:国际经验与政策取向

2020年后,中国扶贫工作将由消除绝对贫困向缓解发展不平衡、不充分的相对贫困转变。本文首先回顾了绝对贫困和相对贫困标准的相关文献,基于可行能力理论从"贫"和"困"的视角构建了多维相对贫困标准概念框架,然后在对基本需要法和能力方法进行理论分析的基础上,结合典型国家的国别经验研究,提出了中国2020年后多维相对贫困标准的政策取向。本文认为,2020年后中国应采用多维相对贫困标准,没有必要与OECD国家相对贫困标准接轨。多维相对贫困标准,既要包括反映"贫"的经济维度,也要包括反映"困"的社会发展维度,还要包括生态环境维度:在经济维度,需要考虑收入和就业两个方面;在社会发展维度,需要考虑教育、健康、社会保障、信息获得等方面;而新发展理念以及生态补偿脱贫实践经验要求把生态环境纳入多维贫困框架中。     

Perspectives of children with disabilities and their guardians on factors affecting inclusion in education in rural Nepal: “I feel sad that I can’t go to school”

Globally, children with disabilities are significantly less likely to attend school compared to their peers without disabilities and, even if they do attend, have poorer educational outcomes. In order to understand why these inequalities persist, this study explores the barriers and enablers to accessing education. We focus on the perspectives of guardians and children with disabilities – voices that have thus far been underrepresented – complemented by perspectives from local and national level stakeholders. Data was collected in three rural districts in Nepal, using semi-structured interviews; data was analysed thematically. Overall, the research found that challenges to inclusion are complex, involving a mixture of individual, family, school, community and policy level factors. Notable barriers were attitudes towards education for children with disabilities, the low capacity of schools to provide an inclusive education, as well as the interplay of additional ‘push factors’ such as poor health and poverty.     

Cash Transfers in Nepal: Do They Contribute to Social Inclusion?

It is often assumed that social protection leads to social inclusion and other well-being indicators. Yet evidence of this impact is weak. Cash transfers are a social protection tool designed to reduce poverty which can also have an impact on human development indicators such as health and education. In the district of Sarlahi, Nepal, cash transfer amounts are too low to improve health and education opportunities or productive pursuits and thus to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty. However, the transfer allows beneficiaries to participate more in community activities, increases their access to information and social networks, and enhances the social contract and people's relationship with the state. This breaks down some of the invisible barriers that perpetuate exclusion. Paying cash transfers in Nepal kick-starts other processes of inclusion and well-being that are hard to overcome by other means because they are invisible, denied and relational. The findings reveal that universal transfers generate perceptions of equality for beneficiaries who value receiving the same thing from the state as the rich. Yet being treated the same as the well-off will not necessarily lead to equal opportunities, poverty reduction or improved local governance. Cash transfers can facilitate social inclusion but are not enough alone to achieve substantive inclusion.     

情与理的耦合：精准识别的基层实践逻辑与案例分析——以江西省X县实践为例

[目的]随着精准扶贫工作的深入推进,其在运行过程中也衍生出了各种形态,致使精准识别机制在基层执行中的瞄准偏离,即基层干部对政策的变通执行。文章通过政策制度嵌入到农村社会的角度研究精准识别瞄准偏离的原因。[方法]基于江西省X县的实地调研,采用Logistics二元回归模型分析政策变通执行的影响因素。[结果]60岁以上老人数量、家庭人口数量、医疗费用支出、是否因病因灾致贫以及家中是否有残疾与基层干部对政策的变通执行具有相关性,且相对贫困家庭中年迈老人数量越多、医疗费用支出越高,基层干部将其识别为建档立卡贫困户的可能性越大。[结论]基层干部对政策的变通执行也反映了国家行政秩序受中国传统农村社会差序格局影响而产生的"情"与"理"的耦合现象。由此该文提出需进一步完善第三方评估指标体系和评估方式以及鼓励地方政府创新精准识别和资金使用机制,以期更好实现精准扶贫的战略目标。     

石漠化生态脆弱区返贫风险影响因素及作用机理

目的 通过对贵州、广西4个生态帮扶重点县脱贫人口的调查,识别出返贫风险影响因素,深度剖析返贫风险作用机理,全方位为返贫治理提供方向。方法 文章基于脆弱性理论和事故链理论,使用Logistic回归和决策树模型综合判断返贫风险的影响因素,并结合回归分析结果和树形图分析该地区返贫风险生成的作用机理。结果 研究共识别出12个显著影响因素,其中生态帮扶、生态护林员政策是生态帮扶重点县地区特有的影响因素。结论 （1）自然环境问题是诱发石漠化地区农户返贫风险的最直接因素,（2）政策保障对劳动力部分或全部丧失的人群具有重要意义,（3）发展动力是阻断返贫的关键因素,（4）生态护林员政策对有自身发展动力且生态保护意识强的农户更有效,（5）帮扶措施是阻断返贫的有力工具,其中外出务工在阻断返贫风险传导上较其他帮扶措施效果更佳。     

苗族地区社会与生态系统和谐元素的探讨

当前我国生态环境的保护、和谐社会的维护主要是依据国家制定法来执行的,但是相关问题并不能得到全面的解决,在这种背景下寻求多元化的治理模式成为一种迫切的需要。苗族作为我国一个古老的少数民族,因其特殊的生产方式和生活习惯,在维系社会秩序、保护生态环境方面发挥着重要的影响。本文主要运用文献调研法对苗族地区有关生态环境保护和社会和谐发展的和谐因素进行探讨。研究发现苗族地区的榔规榔约、民间禁忌、自然崇拜以及图腾崇拜等对生态环境的保护起到了积极的作用;同时,苗族地区的礼仪、民俗、苗族人民的重情重义、团结互助等也是加强社会稳定和谐发展的基本要素。通过对比苗族传统文明和"现代文明",吸收苗族地区传统文化中符合时代发展要求的和谐元素,最终对我们现代社会保护生态环境、维护和谐社会提出启示。     

Implications of the global growth slowdown for rural poverty

Over the past 25 years, higher growth in developing countries has contributed to a dramatic fall in global poverty, although poverty rates in rural areas remain higher than in urban areas. Unfortunately, projected growth rates have fallen in recent years; this article examines the impact of this slowdown on the poor, particularly the rural poor. It first uses a global model to assess the impacts of lower productivity on key price and income variables. It then uses microsimulation models for almost 300,000 households to assess the impacts on their real incomes. Although poverty rates overall are projected to fall substantially, the poorest countries see the greatest slowdown in poverty reduction, with over 5% of their population projected to remain below the poverty line. In addition, poverty rates will remain alarmingly high in many countries. Overall, 38 million fewer people will leave extreme poverty compared to earlier projections. Farm households are at particular risk in middle‐income countries, with over 1.5% more of the farming population remaining trapped in poverty than previously estimated. By 2030, average extreme poverty in rural areas is projected at about 7.5%, rather than 7.1% under the earlier growth projections. Clearly, a strong focus on policies for poverty reduction will be vital for eliminating poverty by 2030.     

The history and development of agricultural and horticultural co‐operatives in East Anglia

This paper argues for a shift of emphasis from larger outlays on two major anti-poverty schemes - the rural public works (RPW) and integrated rural development (IRDP) programmes - to improvements in their design and implementation. Enhanced outlays do not matter much, as they tend to be mistargeted. More specifically, based on National Sample Survey data for 1987-88, neither RPW nor IRDP covered a large segment of the rural poor, while among their beneficiaries the shares of the (relatively) well-off were not negligible. However, the RPW was more effective in excluding the non-poor rather than attracting the poor. There has been a progressive weakening of targeting in both schemes as leakages to the non-poor rose. More of the poor are likely to benefit from RPW if the wage rate is lowered (relative to the agricultural wage), if a combination of piece and time rates is used and if wages in kind are discontinued. On the other hand, in the context of IRDP, there is a need to eliminate the interest subsidy, place greater emphasis on the reduction of transaction costs and to vest rights of land in women. Given the key role of the Village Panchayat in poverty alleviation, it is imperative that it is accountable to the village community. But above all, benefits to the poor from anti-poverty programmes depend ultimately on whether they have the collective strength to affirm their interests.     

‘Freedom from Poverty is Not for Free’: Rural Development and the Microfinance Crisis in Andhra Pradesh,India

Within neoliberal development discourse, the poor are represented as entrepreneurial subjects for whom integration into formalized financial systems can facilitate their escape from poverty. This paper examines how the 2010 microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh reveals significant fault lines that underlie this narrative. It argues that the crisis of microfinance in Andhra Pradesh needs to be placed within the context of severe agrarian dislocations stemming from the impact of trade liberalization, drought cycles and a transformation of rural social relations. The contradictions are most strikingly represented in increasing rural differentiation and a generalized crisis of social reproduction among land‐poor farmers and landless labourers. A massive influx of microfinance – driven by both state‐operated programmes and private‐sector institutions leveraged with cross‐border financial flows – found a ready clientele among various agrarian classes seeking to bolster consumption and roll over debt in conditions of significant uncertainty and distress. Yet in banking on this vulnerability, microfinance institutions socialized the contradictions of rural Andhra Pradesh and have ultimately been thrown into limbo through the unleashing of political and social forces unforeseen in neoliberal narratives of agrarian change.     

‘Good’ farm management employment: Emerging values in the contemporary Irish dairy sector

The number of Irish dairy farms with herds greater than 100 cows has increased from 4.5 % in 2005 to 23 % in 2016. The abolition of the dairy quota in 2015 has led to predictions that this trend will continue and that an additional 6000 people will be required to work on dairy farms by 2025. Ownership of farms is esteemed, with farm employment perceived as a poor second option, so it is necessary to identify possible routes towards creating 'good' farm employment relationships. This paper explores the social, cultural and economic values of employers and employees in the context of early experiences of farm employment in post-quota Ireland. Using narrative analysis, this study found that employees gained esteem and pride from acquiring managerial responsibilities and receiving recognition for their abilities and accomplishments from their employers. Greater social recognition of employ’ abilities by peer groups and in networks (social capital) cemented ‘good employee’ status. Employers, in a context of unprecedented dairy production expansion, emphasised the need for and demonstrated changing of power structures to open up the farm to new forms of influence. However, employers’ reflexivity in support of employment relationships was undermined overall by what the management literature calls a weak ‘rewards system’ for employees. Without the supportive scaffolding of a formalised rewards system, relational gestures of responsibility-devolution and employ’ appreciation of employees may be insufficient to sustain quality farm management employment in the long term. Inevitably, this diminishes the attractiveness of farm employment, limiting the drawing of talent not only into farm employment but into associated capacity-building programmes.     

RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FARMERS' GOALS AND FARM ADJUSTMENT STRATEGIES: SOME EMPIRICS OF A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH

A knowledge of farmers' goals provides an important basis for understanding farmers' preferences for, and choices among, various farm adjustment strategies. Such information is also valuable in estimating the acceptability to farmers of various government measures to assist rural adjustment. The goals of Queensland graziers, with and without a history of farm expansion, are compared. Different adjustment strategies are analysed in terms of the ways in which they satisfy different individual goals. A dimensional analysis of relationships among goals and adjustment strategies reveals that, for those willing to expand but without a history of expansion, income and social goals are at odds with each other. For these graziers, property expansion seemed to be the strategy most likely to meet both these goals. For graziers with a history of expansion, income goals were complementary with social goals.